A placement examination for computer science II

Abstract

Students enrolling in Computer Science II at Mississippi State University (MSU) have widely varying backgrounds. Some have taken the prerequisite course at MSU, some have transferred from community colleges offering the prerequisite, and some are new graduate students with undergraduate deficiencies. Proper placement of students in the introductory courses is necessary to give those students with little background in object-oriented software development an opportunity for success, while challenging students who may have had substantial programming experience elsewhere. The Department has developed and tested a placement examination. The examination helps students decide if they should enroll in an introductory course that assumes some previous programming experience without object-oriented software development, or if they should begin in Computer Science II that assumes knowledge of C++ with object-oriented design. The score on the placement exam demonstrated predictive power when trying to distinguish, coarsely, between those students who will probably pass the Computer Science II course and those students who are at risk of failing the course.